What is Authenticity?
/There’s a knowing when a role has your name on it – almost designed perfectly for you at a precise moment. Of course this is the ideal; the perfect situation, and many times, (maybe always) there will need to be compromises, but those compromises can only be clearly defined, accepted and navigated if both parties are clear on their own ideal position.
“90% of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves” - Sydney J Harris
Most psychotherapists will tell you this is true. Astonishing isn’t it – the person we live with every minute of every day since the moment we were born, and from whom we cannot escape, is very often a stranger to us. We are often unaware at a conscious level of our needs, our true strengths, our desires, our principles and our beliefs, residing instead in a world of denial, distraction and conformity. And in order to remain unaware on a conscious level, we actually have to expend effort of denying, controlling and blocking our emotions, our feelings and the expression of our needs.
How can it be, that the hardest question you can ask any human being is “what do you really want?” And yet ask anyone that question and watch as they squirm and become an inarticulate wreck, before they deflect in some way……
Corporations however are not places of psychotherapy, existential debate or philosophical enquiry. Actually I would hope that they are indeed places where these activities are honoured, but it is not the prime purpose of a corporation to do these things. A corporation is founded or created to achieve a tangible purpose – therapy, debate and enquiry are processes not objectives.
So why should a corporation be interested in people acting authentically? Why can’t people simply follow the Frederick Taylor / Henry Ford type dynamic of simply following processes, rules and procedures and turning out the required goods? Well, whilst that dynamic arguably served the world well when it wanted mass produced, cheap, uniform consumer products, today consumers want concepts, services and virtual or digital content. And these require a workforce that can think and create – which in turn means allowing people to be human. If we want their flair, their creativity, their passion, then we have to take the whole package, and that means also taking their worries, their troubles, their flaws and their messiness. All very inconvenient, but a necessary part of the package.
Actually the real trick of course is not just to tolerate the flaws, since that implies a judgementalism that will come through in unconscious controlling behaviours. The real trick is to see human flaws as positive contributors to the whole creative process. We should celebrate our messiness as humans, rather than roll our eyes and tut.
The real opportunity for us within corporations is to create workplaces that are real communities of growth, learning, progress, innovation and achievement. If you are managing a workforce of automatons, command and control style hierarchies work mechanically pretty well. But managing a workforce of human beings, with all their flaws, emotions and external distractions, requires something altogether more sophisticated and refined. It requires humanity – it requires leaders who are authentic human beings first.
Look in the dictionary for definitions of ‘authentic’ and you come up with the following:
“Being faithful to internal rather than external ideas”
“The quality of being genuine”
“Not corrupted from the original”
“Undisputed credibility”
“Worthy of trust and reliance”
An authentic person is open, honest, true, real.....and has integrity. Trying to be someone else is stressful and doomed. Striving to be the best version of ourselves is joyful and effortless, as long as we can be guided and coached not to sabotage ourselves through fear.....as Marianne Williamson said in her oft quoted poem “it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us”. It is bizarre, but we will often procrastinate and distract ourselves from doing what we love, or from following our heart, for fear that we may just achieve it – and then what? What on earth would we do if we were truly happy; truly fulfilled? We’d have no excuses left……
“Always be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of somebody else” - Judy Garland
When we try to be someone else we are already setting up lies that we then have no choice but to perpetuate, and this is incredibly hard work, requiring a huge amount of effort even just to remember what we’ve said and to whom. But we are interested in authentic leaders, not just wonderful individual human beings.
An authentic leader has purpose and a vision, and will do what’s right for the good of the cause. Entering a joint endeavour or enterprise where we can all pursue our authentic selves is the finest way to serve the World. So as long as the World needs what we have……….and if it doesn’t then it’s only about money.
“We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, in love and in learning” - Robert Bellah
So let us see our corporations as places where we can commune together for an important purpose or cause, and where we can grow and learn together.
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About the Author: Gareth Chick is a 40 year corporate veteran with a global profile. His career has included hugely successful spells as CFO, CEO and Chairman in both public and private sectors, including private equity. What makes Gareth's experience unique is that he combined those executive roles with a part time career as a leadership trainer, researching psychology, neuroscience and psychotherapy to create leadership development programmes used now by many major global corporations. In the last 15 years Gareth has trained over 5000 managers and served as Executive Coach to over 200 senior execs including FTSE100 CEOs and Fortune 500 VPs. As Founder of Collaborative Equity LLP, “promoting corporate cultures and sustainable business models of shared ownership, shared responsibility and shared rewards", Gareth acts as consultant to many global leaders, specialising in first time CEOs and Start Up founders. ↠ find out more at ceq.com
